A shimmering of microbes

I see that we're beyond

the plughole tearing down

into pits of dead heroes.

Newspapers eight-thick

secure the walls. Dot one

is made, dot two a frantic

beaming of rectangle

rotoscoped in wax sealed.

I've hidden hard nails

in your sock drawer

then I'll clamber out

of the underground, planting

my boot on a manifesto;

but first you mu...

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When it rains can we be the blackout again

the one-hundred-and-forty-four gun salute

while stepping through waves of molten glue

and gauze skies siphon ink in this pen

Turquoise and amber lights, and lightning

I run inside Clive's carmine scrapbook

bent like a cigarette, a screamed kaleidoscope

oh merrie band were they; the fighting

1.6 million, at the turn of the...

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You laughed at my

pointless remark

and showed me the setting

on the new, new dot machine,

like a 'ghost filter', black,

grey, chrome and you're

hardly there;

the leaves of

some exotic plant

filling the solid plates

of silver face, torso.

I said such things are

pointless art.

You said that the only thing

that's certain

is that nothing

is certain,

t...

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I - Trains

I pass the Sunday gardens,

keeping vigil by narrow factory aisle,

summoning auburn sky and smoke-salt;

then trace the river to its end

to wait, empty-handed on pebbled beach.

The blue sky rips, wallpaper,

with trumpets and cymbals, and bodies

bullet-sped 'cross countless arches.

There I am with you,

the outside world a postbox slit, as

we brace the walls

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I  commenced battle

and ended it swiftly

complicit in love's long game.

Rows of cups and saucers

and chipped face of cheese-board

dropped-heavy; the sink a salad bowl

of porcelain bones crunched

crazed; fuzz-hard green wires

absorbing like a forest roof.

I've hollowed out this morning

with a pen knife, stuck a wad

of shut-eye and shame

inside with the smell...

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Sixteen years ago this week the Boscastle flood occurred. The two villages of Boscastle and Crackington Haven in Cornwall suffered extensive damage after flash floods caused by an exceptional amount of rain that fell over eight hours on the afternoon of Monday 16 August 2004.The flood in Boscastle was filmed and extensively reported but the floods in Crackington Haven and Rocky Valley were not men...

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Sorry

that you didn't get

to see me,

hidden in my outzise

paper-board ink

tree

and dripping entrails

on your dress

Maybe the melody

we sought to wove

was always supposed

to end in knots

and I'd go crawling over

the checkerboards

lifting and putting down

the bricks you threw

each engraved

with its own symbol,

'FAO', for the suit outside

...

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